


Winter in District 7

by Sheeana



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Extras, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 10:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeana/pseuds/Sheeana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johanna Mason is learning how to be a victor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter in District 7

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arsenic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/gifts).



> This is just an extra treat I wrote while I was looking through all the requests. I hope you like it!

It's winter in District 7. Well, it's winter everywhere in Panem, but Johanna doesn't get out all that much. Once a year for the Games, but that's in summer, so she's never seen what winter looks like in the other districts. The snow is deep on the ground here, an annoying fact of life this high up in the mountains at this time of year. She used to love the sound it made when it crunched under her boots as she trudged through it, but love's too strong a word for anything good she feels anymore.

They've given her a sturdy wooden house and enough firewood to last a lifetime. They've taken her parents and her brother. It's not a fair trade. She'd spend every second of the rest of her life blowing on her shaking fingers for warmth if it would bring back-

But it wouldn't, so that's pointless. No going back now.

Winter in District 7 means sweet syrup and hot cider, and if Johanna was still little she'd be outside with the rest of the kids right now. She's not little anymore, though, and no one really talks to her since she came back from the Capitol. Two years and counting since she's heard from her cousins. One and a half since she's spoken to her old neighbors. No one wants anything to do with Johanna Mason the liar. Johanna Mason who pretended to be afraid and turned out to be a killer. Johanna Mason who used to be that sweet little girl, who always smiled and said please and thank you. (That's a lie, but if it makes them feel better, they can say whatever they want. She never liked anyone here much anyway, other than her family.)

Last time she was in the Capitol, the gruff idiot from District 12 – and there's only one, because they never win – told her that she'd better start smiling a lot more, because there's no riding out the storm and coming out the other side. She figures he's right, since she realizes now that they're never leaving her alone. She's got kids to mentor and dresses to wear and interviews to fake. If she can't escape it, she has to find a way to live with it.

So she picks up the phone, and she dials a number written in a scrawling script in garish purple ink on the back of a thick paper card that must have come from the raw wood of her district. It's too bad no one in her district ever gets to use the paper they make, she thinks bitterly, and that brings a smile to her face like nothing else. It's her little secret, like it was in the arena. She can smile all day until her teeth hurt, but secretly she hates them for what they did.

"Hello?" comes a soft voice on the other end of the line. Not Finnick Odair, that's for sure. She wonders if Haymitch got the number wrong.

"Is Finnick there?" she asks curtly, because she's never been good at pretending to be polite. Meek, scared, sure. Angry, vengeful, that's not even pretending. Polite's a different story.

"Not today."

"Oh."

"Johanna Mason?"

"How do you know my name?" she says, and suddenly she's wary.

"He said you would call."

"... Oh."

"I'll tell him you called."

"No, it's-"

"I'll tell him," the woman says insistently, and then there's a long, awkward silence while Johanna tries to figure out what she's supposed to say right now. She's starting to put two and two together – a soft voice, a woman's voice, on a phone that's supposed to belong to Finnick Odair. She always thought it was only a rumor, but she decides to go ahead and say it anyway.

"Annie Cresta?"

"Yes." And instantly Johanna knows that the two of them share something. Then the silence is more comfortable. Something about being around other victors that sets Johanna's mind at ease as much as it puts her on alert. There's a feeling when you know you're the last person alive in the arena. It's not like any other feeling in the world. It's not a feeling a lot of other people know about.

"... Okay. Fine. Tell him I called," she finally says.

It's a start.


End file.
